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Graphemic and Semantic Pathways of Number–Color Synesthesia: A Dissociation of Conceptual Synesthesia Mechanisms

Number–color synesthesia is a condition in which synesthetes perceive numbers with concurrent experience of specific, corresponding colors. It has been proposed that synesthetic association exists primarily between representations of Arabic digit graphemes and colors, and a secondary, semantic conne...

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Autores principales: Yue, Shimeng, Chen, Lihan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9599516/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36291334
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci12101400
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author Yue, Shimeng
Chen, Lihan
author_facet Yue, Shimeng
Chen, Lihan
author_sort Yue, Shimeng
collection PubMed
description Number–color synesthesia is a condition in which synesthetes perceive numbers with concurrent experience of specific, corresponding colors. It has been proposed that synesthetic association exists primarily between representations of Arabic digit graphemes and colors, and a secondary, semantic connection between numerosity and colors is built via repeated co-activation. However, this distinction between the graphemic and semantic pathways of synesthetic number–color connection has not been empirically tested. The current study aims to dissociate graphemic and semantic aspects of color activations in number–color synesthesia by comparing their time courses. We adopted a synesthetic priming paradigm with varied stimuli onset asynchronies (SOAs). A number (2–6, prime) was presented in one of three notations: digit, dice, or non-canonical dot pattern, and a color patch (target) appeared with an SOA of 0, 100, 300, 400, or 800 ms. Participants reported the color as quickly as possible. Using the congruency effect (i.e., shorter reaction time when target color matched the synesthetic color of number prime) as an index of synesthetic color activation level, we revealed that the effect from the graphemic pathway is quick and relatively persistent, while the effect from the semantic pathway unfolds at a later stage and is more transient. The dissociation between the graphemic and semantic pathways of synesthesia implies further functional distinction within “conceptual synesthesia”, which has been originally discussed as a unitary phenomenon. This distinction has been demonstrated by the differential time courses of synesthetic color activations, and suggested that a presumed, single type of synesthesia could involve multiple mechanisms.
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spelling pubmed-95995162022-10-27 Graphemic and Semantic Pathways of Number–Color Synesthesia: A Dissociation of Conceptual Synesthesia Mechanisms Yue, Shimeng Chen, Lihan Brain Sci Article Number–color synesthesia is a condition in which synesthetes perceive numbers with concurrent experience of specific, corresponding colors. It has been proposed that synesthetic association exists primarily between representations of Arabic digit graphemes and colors, and a secondary, semantic connection between numerosity and colors is built via repeated co-activation. However, this distinction between the graphemic and semantic pathways of synesthetic number–color connection has not been empirically tested. The current study aims to dissociate graphemic and semantic aspects of color activations in number–color synesthesia by comparing their time courses. We adopted a synesthetic priming paradigm with varied stimuli onset asynchronies (SOAs). A number (2–6, prime) was presented in one of three notations: digit, dice, or non-canonical dot pattern, and a color patch (target) appeared with an SOA of 0, 100, 300, 400, or 800 ms. Participants reported the color as quickly as possible. Using the congruency effect (i.e., shorter reaction time when target color matched the synesthetic color of number prime) as an index of synesthetic color activation level, we revealed that the effect from the graphemic pathway is quick and relatively persistent, while the effect from the semantic pathway unfolds at a later stage and is more transient. The dissociation between the graphemic and semantic pathways of synesthesia implies further functional distinction within “conceptual synesthesia”, which has been originally discussed as a unitary phenomenon. This distinction has been demonstrated by the differential time courses of synesthetic color activations, and suggested that a presumed, single type of synesthesia could involve multiple mechanisms. MDPI 2022-10-17 /pmc/articles/PMC9599516/ /pubmed/36291334 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci12101400 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Yue, Shimeng
Chen, Lihan
Graphemic and Semantic Pathways of Number–Color Synesthesia: A Dissociation of Conceptual Synesthesia Mechanisms
title Graphemic and Semantic Pathways of Number–Color Synesthesia: A Dissociation of Conceptual Synesthesia Mechanisms
title_full Graphemic and Semantic Pathways of Number–Color Synesthesia: A Dissociation of Conceptual Synesthesia Mechanisms
title_fullStr Graphemic and Semantic Pathways of Number–Color Synesthesia: A Dissociation of Conceptual Synesthesia Mechanisms
title_full_unstemmed Graphemic and Semantic Pathways of Number–Color Synesthesia: A Dissociation of Conceptual Synesthesia Mechanisms
title_short Graphemic and Semantic Pathways of Number–Color Synesthesia: A Dissociation of Conceptual Synesthesia Mechanisms
title_sort graphemic and semantic pathways of number–color synesthesia: a dissociation of conceptual synesthesia mechanisms
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9599516/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36291334
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci12101400
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